The present invention relates to plug-type aircraft doors, and more particularly to actuating mechanism for unlatching, unplugging and opening an aircraft door, for closing, plugging and latching an aircraft door, and for arming and disarming an escape slide deploying mechanism used in conjunction with the aircraft door.
Commercial passenger airplanes are required to carry emergency evacuation equipment. Large commercial airplanes carry emergency evacuation or escape slides that are associated with one or more of the ingress and egress openings in the fuselage. The evacuation slides are sometimes stored in a remote but accessible location and are attached to the passenger deck adjacent the fuselage opening in an emergency situation. Conventionally, the containers for emergency evacuation slides are attached to a fuselage door under normal circumstances and are detached from the door and attached to the passenger deck adjacent the door opening either by direct manipulation of the evacuation slide container or by a manually operated, remote actuating mechanism under emergency conditions.
It is a broad object of the present invention to provide an integrated, manually actuated mechanism for arming and disarming an emergency evacuation slide mechanism attached to an aircraft door, for plugging and unplugging a track-mounted aircraft door, and for positively locking and latching the aircraft door in a closed position. Further objects of the present invention are to provide such an actuating mechanism that cannot be inadvertently manipulated when the escape slide arming mechanism is in an armed condition; to provide such an actuating mechanism for plugging and unplugging and at the same time locking and unlocking a track-mounted, overhead sliding aircraft door with a single connection to the door mechanism; to provide such an actuating mechanism that includes a positive latch to secure the door in place when it is closed in addition to the plugging and locking mechanism; to provide such an actuating mechanism that can be manipulated from inside and outside the aircraft fuselage; and to provide such an actuating mechanism that prevents the door from being opened from the outside of the fuselage when the escape slide arming mechanism is in an armed condition.